[Commander] Vish Kal the Life-Gain Arbiter

Intro: So this isn’t your standard Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter deck. It’s a total life-gain deck; normally the first 5 or 6 turns is spent building my mana base while letting the opponents beat my life total into the low teens then exploding in their faces and blinding them with sheer awesome. That being said, I could use some more focus here… I’ve got a lot of awesome life-gain and some good late game in the form of next-turn-wins and Storm Herd but I feel like I’m severely under-using my general’s ability. But at the same time, I don’t want to add a bunch of non-life gaining creatures JUST to sac to Vish …enter conundrum… Help would be appreciated.

Cards I’m not sure about:Death Grasp and Exsanguinate – Are OK but really only work super well when I have Sanguine Bond out so I keep thinking about finding something better but I can’t decide; the same with Tainted Sigil (they just seem to conditional). True Conviction – An awesome card, but it’s so expensive (mana-wise). Almost every deck I’ve put it into I end up cutting it. Anyone else have good/bad experience with it?Ajani Goldmane – Fits the theme but it’s not the best planeswalker ever.Intervention Pact – This cards seems like it could be amazing, especially against a token deck but I haven’t had a chance to pull and test it yet.Heroes Remembered – I’ve drawn this card within my first 4 turns both times I’ve gotten it so it’s worked out OK, but it could be traded out for something better/faster.

Sorry it took me so long, I'm usually all over Orzhov decks, but I slept late today.

I have a Vish deck that's all about lifegain and profiting from it and sacrifice. The list is in my sig, you might have a look for some ideas, there is a section for tips/tricks/combos after the deck. The Ghost Council deck in my sig has an even larger t/t/c section that can apply as well.

Some good self-recurring sac fodder can work well like Bloodghast, Reassembling Skeleton, and Nether Traitor. The traitor is especially good with your equipments since he can rarely be blocked, and they are all 3 amazing with Skullclamp. They also help control the board with Martyr's Bond, and I'd even consider Grave Pact as another similar effect.

I would absolutely keep Death Grasp and especially Exsanguinate. They have been good for me, even without Sanguine Bond onboard.

Mimic Vat is another consideration, giving you something good to sac off with Vish every turn. Stuff like Divinity of Pride gets stupid scary on the vat in this deck. Yosei, Mangara, Archon, Angel of Despair, Wurmcoil, they all get nuts quick.

I always preach about Cabal Coffers (both good and bad), though very few ever believe me 'til it costs them a game. Please consider:

Cabal Coffers is a VERY powerful land and wins games, in a mono-black deck. In a multi-color deck, even just two-color, it will hold you back far more than it will help, and it loses games. You have to have Coffers plus 4 swamps in play to see any profit from it not just being a basic land. And once it its active, if you run many non-swamp lands at all, it's power is greatly diminished. If it's not active, it's a completely dead land, sitting on the field doing nothing but hurting you. It can severely hinder tempo/early game development. I've lost several games because of an inactive coffers. Yes, Urborg makes everthing a swamp, the two of them are great together, but you can nowhere near count on drawing them both, even with tutors, nor can you count on the other players not giggling when they Strip Mine Urborg to leave you with an inactive coffers again. The only multi-color decks that can effectively use coffers must have green in them. With green you can tutor them both up and instantly have it online with something like Primeval Titan, or tutor for more needed basic swamps, but even in the case of green, I'm still shy of the card for hampering early game development.

Hey Blackjack68, thanks for the suggestions. I have some comments, but they will have to wait for tomorrow as I gotta jet outta here but do you think you could make a couple/few suggestions on what to remove? You gave me like 10 adds and no removes lol. Thanks again in advance for your time...

do you think you could make a couple/few suggestions on what to remove? You gave me like 10 adds and no removes lol. .

Yeah, I'm bad about that I never like suggesting the cuts.

Ones that I think could make way for other choices. Not necessarily bad, just my personal choices:
Archon of Redemption
Ajani
Feudkiller
Ob Nix
Endless Horizons
O-Ring
Heroes Remembered
Intervention Pact

Just a shot in the dark and perhaps the more experience bodies in EDH can help with this one. Would a card such as Phyrexian Dreadnought be good in this deck? You could sac it to the commander before it has to sac itself. That's a whole lot of counters for 1 mana.

Just a shot in the dark and perhaps the more experience bodies in EDH can help with this one. Would a card such as Phyrexian Dreadnought be good in this deck? You could sac it to the commander before it has to sac itself. That's a whole lot of counters for 1 mana.

I would like to hear the answer to this... because if it works that way, he's going in here. Thanks for the thought Chef.

Just a shot in the dark and perhaps the more experience bodies in EDH can help with this one. Would a card such as Phyrexian Dreadnought be good in this deck? You could sac it to the commander before it has to sac itself. That's a whole lot of counters for 1 mana.

Yes, it works. The ruling is:7/15/2007: If the Dreadnought is no longer on the battlefield when the triggered ability resolves, you may still choose either option.

So play PD, sac him to Vish for 12 counters, let his ability resolve choosing to sac PD, giggle..... then direct your angry friend to magiccards.info to see the ruling for themselves.

MikeCline - I think you may not have seen Archon of Justice correctly. He's not a flying O-ring, he's a flying Vindicate. It's exile any permanent forever.

Cards I’m not sure about:
Death Grasp and Exsanguinate – Are OK but really only work super well when I have Sanguine Bond out so I keep thinking about finding something better but I can’t decide; the same with Tainted Sigil (they just seem to conditional).

I had a lot of fun with this deck when I played it, but these are two cards that really screwed me over when I played them. I would go all out with either, and someone would typically either counter it or redirect it. If you really wanted to play them, I'd recommend throwing in Boseiju and maybe Imp's Mischief